Merrick studied his wife carefully. There was fear under her iron control. She was thinking of the shattering pain of death under the projectors. Nothing else, really. The Creche didn't matter to her. The Creche didn't really matter to any of the staff. Three hundred years ago it would have been different. The custodians of the Creche would have gladly died to preserve their trust in those times....
What irony, Merrick thought, that it should come like this. He knew what the projectors did to men. He also knew what they did to robots.
"If they dare to use their weapons on us it will wipe out every vestige of control work done here since the beginning," he said softly.
"They have no way of knowing that."
"Nor would they believe it if we told them."
"And that brings us right back to where we started. You can't keep Erikson out, and the Council of Ten has left us on our own. They don't dare oppose the Fanatics. But there's an old political maxim you would do well to consider very carefully since it's our only hope, Han," Virginia Merrick said, "'If you can't beat someone—join him.'"
he dragged deeply on her cigarette, blue smoke curling from her gold-tinted lips. "This has been coming on for ten years. I tried to warn you then, but you wouldn't listen. Remember?"
How like a woman, Merrick thought bitterly, to be saying I told you so.